Tuesday, July 8, 2014

This proposed rule would update the Home Health Prospective Payment System (HH PPS) rates, including the national, standardized 60-day episode payment rates, the national per-visit rates, and the non-routine medical supply (NRS) conversion factor under the Medicare prospective payment system for home health agencies (HHAs), effective January 1, 2015. As required by the Affordable Care Act, this rule implements the second year of the four-year phase-in of the rebasing adjustments to the HH PPS payment rates. This rule provides information on our efforts to monitor the potential impacts of the rebasing adjustments and the Affordable Care Act mandated face-to-face encounter requirement. This rule also proposes: Changes to simplify the face-to-face encounter regulatory requirements; changes to the HH PPS case-mix weights; changes to the home health quality reporting program requirements; changes to simplify the therapy reassessment timeframes; a revision to the Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) personnel qualifications; minor technical regulations text changes; and limitations on the reviewability of the civil monetary penalty provisions. Finally, this proposed rule also discusses Medicare coverage of insulin injections under the HH PPS, the delay in the implementation of ICD-10-CM, and solicits comments on a HH value-based purchasing (HH VBP) model.https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/07/07/2014-15736/medicare-and-medicaid-programs-cy-2015-home-health-prospective-payment-system-rate-update-home